the power crisis is the result of decades of mismanagement and massive corruption, criminal gangs ready to kill anyone who tries to stop the looting. i was shaking badly. i was literally lying like this and i started gasping for air. a mixture of cyanide and sodium arsenite. today, south africa still gets almost all its power from burning coal. it's a lethal addiction. it's killing us. this coal is killing us. the answer, to many, is a green revolution. but can western money and pressure help south africa embrace renewable energy? or is the rot here simply too deep? it's very depressing. it's very concerning. our country is in

a serious dark place. stage 4 load shedding will continue to be implemented until further notice. it says that stage 6 will be implemented at 8pm tonight until 5am. how did it come to this? south africa, the continent's great economic powerhouse, is in deep trouble. long daily power cuts injohannesburg and across the country. dawn, and the traffic lights are still not working. this is alexandra township, a poor neighbourhood on the edge ofjohannesburg. every day here, the power goes out, sometimes for four hours, sometimes for eight or more. officially, it's called load shedding — which sounds almost helpful, almost pleasant —

but the truth is that these power cuts are having a devastating impact in a country with a stagnant economy and soaring unemployment. and it's particularly in poor neighbourhoods like this one that the effects are being felt the most. suzeke mousa has run this bar for 25 years. we don't have money because of the power, because of the electricity. you can see now it's dark. are you going to survive in your business? i don't think so. the power shortage is taking the business out. it must be stressful. very, very, very stressful. very, very stressful. the cash transfer business next door is on the ropes, too. we sit more than sixi hours doing nothing. it's our salaries. if we don't work, i we don't get paid. essentially, this economy has ground to a halt because we cannot provide

factories, industry with electricity that's needed to produce. that has a direct impact on poor people who lose jobs, who cannot work, who cannot earn money. and poverty kills. poverty leads to young people not getting the education they deserve and so forth and so forth. at that level, i think this is treason. why treason? well, that's what we're going to try to find out. we're just heading out ofjohannesburg now and almost immediately, we are in coal country. you can see the coal—fired power stations on the horizon and you can smell the coal, too. now, in theory, this huge industry is supposed to be quietly transitioning to renewables — to solar and wind. south africa has huge

resources of both. but in practice, that transition is proving very difficult and very dangerous. we're heading to a town called emalahleni. the word itself means "place of coal". if you want to understand south africa's energy crisis, this is a good place to start. the town is surrounded by mines and by criminal gangs fighting for a slice of the coal industry. with us in the car, a local guide wary of being identified. so we're coming just to the edge here of what is an illegal mine, an illegal coal mine? yeah. i'm just going to go around the corner here — is that 0k? we're told there are at least 60 so—called black sites in this region where coal is stolen or traded illegally. what's extraordinary is quite how brazen it is. it's happening every day out

in the open, in daylight. even at night, we hear gunshots. gunshots. even they are fighting amongst themselves. the different gangs? yes. we need to be careful, then. yes. because there's so much money at stake... yes. ..that they will kill for it. they'll do that. let's see if we can try and talk to one of the truck drivers with the coal, once they've left this area. is it quite a dangerous business to be involved in? yeah, sometimes it is because you don't know whether the mine is illegal or legal. and then, you take your truck to that mine only to find out that that mine is illegal. localjournalists investigating the gangs run huge risks. it really is a brutal province for anybody who wants to expose the truth. a gangster kind of economy. yeah, definitely. life is cheap in this country.

you can hire hit men for 10,000 rand — that's m00. so, the system is, ithink, rotten to the core. and dangerous? yeah, absolutely. but stolen coal is only part of a much bigger problem. spread across this province are a dozen coal—fired power plants. they look like ships that have run aground. we're now driving to one named tutuka. a huge plant. but today, it's barely functioning, brought to its knees by years of mismanagement, looting and sabotage — like this fire caught on camera at a nearby plant. the sort of scams that have been going on at power stations like this one range from pretty basic fraud — for instance, inflating the price of simple protective gear by up to 800 times — to much more complex

things like sabotage, so jamming key pumping stations and also putting rocks in the coal supply to damage the whole system — and then, of course, you have to bring in new contractors to fix things with more inflated prices. tutuka is such a lucrative target for criminal gangs that the last plant manager wore body armour to work. his successor is hoping he can manage without. so, you're happy about your security? 0k, look, i don't think... yeah — can we not go there? it's a serious question, though. i mean, your predecessor wore a bulletproofjacket because he was so concerned about the criminality here, but you're not. you think that's been resolved? um... i'm not worried. at this stage, there's nothing substantial for me to get worried.

so, it is business. i'm focusing on recovering the station. but the dangers here are real. we've arranged to meet a businessman involved in the local coal industry. he's now scared for his life after being threatened by criminals. we've agreed to hide his identity for his own protection. it was very terrible because it was the first time someone pulls a gun on me. they held it to your head? yeah, held it to my head. told me i must do one, two, three. did they threaten your family? they did. they told me they are not afraid of anybody. they are politically connected. so, they're above the law? basically. these political connections are crucial. investigations by south african journalists have revealed alleged links between corruption in the coal industry and some of the country's most

powerful politicians. this leaked intelligence document claims to identify four criminal cartels, each with a network of henchmen and assassins, and links to senior government officials — a sign here, to many, of the rot within the governing anc. the anc cannot solve this problem because the anc is as involved as everyone else in this problem. it's so deep in the rot, it doesn't know how to extricate itself, and any attempt to fix the problem exacerbates it. can anyone stop the rot? in 2019, a businessman, andre de ruyter, was brought in to clean up the state power utility eskom. he was blunt about the challenges. so, the stays were cut, the tower was pushed over onto the other line but nothing was stolen, so this is not an economic crime.

this was clearly now an act of sabotage and i think we can call it as such. but that outspokenness would soon get him in trouble. in fact, as we'll see in a moment, it would get him poisoned. the pressure to break south africa's dependence on coal has been building for years and yet, south ofjohannesburg, machines the size of apartment blocks still scrape at the earth to expose more rich seams. south africa is addicted to coal. right now, 85% of all the power consumed in this country comes from burning this stuff — that's compared with less than 2% in somewhere like the uk — which is why this relatively small economy is still one of the world's great c02 emitters. and here's the impact. machine whirrs

eight—year—old princess matsebula has grown up in coal country. when she struggles with breathing, it's very hard cos she'll be quiet, she won't eat, she won't talk, she won't do anything. official information about pollution levels here is curiously hard to get but leaked studies suggest this province is among the most polluted places on earth and that the coal industry is killing thousands of people every year. my wish is they have to cancel the coal so that we can breathe clean air. do you think they will? they must. they must cancel the coal because it is killing us. this coal is killing us. these local campaigners say the government is putting jobs

before health and ignoring court orders to enforce pollution standards. it's. .. sobs for me, i can't even explain the feeling inside. and it's been long talking about this but it doesn't come up into terms where i can swallow it. it's painful. so, nothing changes? nothing changes. but change might be coming. south africa is big and sunny. it has vast wind and solar potential. and western nations are now backing something called a just energy transition — an $8 billion plan to help wean south africa off coal.

we have a vast, abundant energy source freely available to us, which is our wind and solar resources. they're amongst the best of anywhere in the world. so, we have some real least—cost options in front of us. we could transition very rapidly onto a renewable—dominant energy system. and speed is crucial because if south africa drags its feet on going green, its exports could soon be blacklisted by other countries. you know, i'm talking about the hard economic reality. if we don't decarbonise, we're going to be shut out of the global trading system and we're going to lose massive amounts of jobs. but the just energy transition faces obstacles — lots of them. coal miners and their unions worry — with good reason —

about their own jobs vanishing here in south africa. many people will lose theirjob. they'll lose their job if the coal was closed down, the coal mining stopped? we'd lose ourjob. and then, there's the politics. plenty of seniorfigures here are sceptical, to put it mildly, about the very idea of abandoning coal. you've been described as a coal fundamentalist, as a bit of a dinosaur, somebody who's obsessed with coal. yes, they call me all sorts of things. �*coal fundamentalist�* and �*fossil fuel dinosaur�*. do you recognise that? i take those as prestigious statements. it�*s a compliment. yeah. those are prestigious titles for me. do you believe the west, then, is treating you unfairly, that they�*re pushing you to get rid of coal in a manner that just doesn�*t work for south africa? unfairness is an understatement. they are treating us as a guinea pig.

they want to experiment with us. but then, what choice does south africa have but radical change when it can no longer keep the lights on? when south africa�*s president, cyril ramaphosa, came to power in 2018, he promised to stop the rot. we are determined to build a society defined by decency and integrity that does not tolerate the plunder of public resources, nor the theft by corporate criminals of the hard—earned savings of ordinary people. as part of that process, the president brought in a businessman called andre de ruyter — the tall white man he�*s greeting here. his task — to lead south africa�*s energy transformation and to fix the mess at the power utility eskom. the rot was much worse than i anticipated

when i took the job. my rough estimate of the amount of money that gets stolen in eskom every month is in the region of a billion rand. every month. a billion rand. that�*s $50 million each month. to be fair, there have been some arrests. this man is an alleged saboteur, accused of damaging a local power station on behalf ofa criminal gang. but these prosecutions are targeting the lower ranks. the cartel leaders, the politicians seem untouchable and still determined to block the transition away from coal. there are so many vested interests in the coal value chain that the threat of decarbonisation, even though we�*re talking about a multi—decade move — gradual, very gradual

move away from coal — why that is so...eagerly opposed. the minister of mineral resources and energy, gwede mantashe, says that... soon, seniorfigures within the governing anc started to attack de ruyter and his team at eskom. ..eskom, by not attending to load shedding, is actively agitating for the overthrow of the state. that�*s right. the energy minister was accusing de ruyter and his reform team of treason. one morning soon after that, de ruyter was in his office and asked an assistant for a cup of coffee. at first, the coffee machine was said to be broken and the eskom boss�*s mug was briefly left beside it unattended. minutes later, a full cup was taken to de ruyter. i detected nothing. and then about 15, 20

minutes after this cup of coffee, i started feeling extremely nauseous. and the theory is that it was a mixture of cyanide and sodium arsenite, which is a rat poison. he survived, but quit his job and fled the country. and this is where the poisoning happened — in a supposedly secure executive suite. it�*s an extraordinary thing for your ceo to be poisoned in the building. yeah. so, that investigation is ongoing at the moment. we have been engaging with the authorities on that. ongoing, but there have been no arrests. that�*s pretty shocking, given what happened. but i guess it�*s a process, hey? we�*ll see. we�*ll see — or a whitewash. laughs i�*m not going to comment. when you are going hard at the criminals and looking

at, you know, eradicating all the evils within the organisation, it becomes a dangerous area. you�*re still scared for your life? no, absolutely. every day, i am. and the reaction from the governing party? rather than supporting the poisoned ceo, many in the anc were openly hostile or, at best, sceptical. de ruyter, who was the head of eskom, the ceo... yes. ..he was poisoned late last year, at the end of last year. i can�*t give evidence to that. so, he might have been lying? i can�*t give evidence to that. his doctors say he was poisoned. the tests show he was poisoned. i can�*t... i can�*t give evidence to that. why can�*t you acknowledge that? did you call him up and see how he was? no, i can�*t give evidence on things i don�*t know. so, you don�*t recognise this picture he�*s portrayed of an anc using eskom as a feeding trough? no, i don�*t. "the looting he describes,

it may be going on, but i�*ve "got no proof of it." it sounds like you�*re deflecting responsibility for a terrible mess. no, i�*m not deflecting. but the man who helped lead a long judicial inquiry into state corruption here believes the situation is now worse than ever. one common theme that runs through all those assassinations and attempted assassinations is access to resources, access to state resources in a way that criminals can easily benefit. now, the poisoning of de ruyter is part, not an isolated instance, part of a whole pattern of conduct. our country is in a serious, dark place. to which the optimists

here reply, "look around you." the move to renewable energy is happening anyway, regardless of the corruption, regardless of what south africa�*s government does or doesn�*t do. unstoppable. i mean, i can confidently say the energy transition in this country is well under way. not always by design, sometimes driven by crisis and ineptitude, but it�*s happening at a pace and scale that from us in the climate commission we can say is a very positive development. but that optimism has to be set against the struggles south africa still faces — the struggle against deep poverty and inequality, the struggle to clean up politics and to break the criminals�* chokehold on the economy. i just think it�*s getting worse. just getting worse. if we don't do something about this, if there isn't the political will,

then, yes, we're talking about it's a failed state because there is no solution in sight. hello there. for many parts of the country, there�*s been no significant rain for the last two weeks or more, and there�*s no rain really in the outlook for the next ten days. we�*re going to be playing with the cloud again, there was a bit of cloud coming in and sticking around across some eastern parts of england in particular during thursday, but there�*s drier air following around the top of that area of high pressure, coming in off the north sea, so prospects are better, perhaps, in terms of sunshine because the cloud that we start with on friday will be thinner, it�*s more likely to break more readily, and sunshine

will develop across pretty much the whole of england and wales, notjust scotland and northern ireland. not much cloud around come the afternoon at all. still quite breezy in the south—east, and the wind�*s coming in off the north sea, so right on the coast it�*s going to be cooler, but with more sunshine around, those temperatures more widely will be reaching 20 or 21 celsius. now, into the weekend and there�*s the same area of high pressure. it�*s not going anywhere through saturday and sunday. it�*s sitting in the same place. you can see more isobars there in the south, so it will be windy through the channel and the south—east of england, but it looks like saturday should be dry and sunny, across many parts of the country, but this time we�*ve got more cloud along the north coast of northern ireland and more cloud in the far north of scotland, so here, it will be a little bit cooler, but with the sunshine around and light winds for many away from the south and south—east, those temperatures creeping up a little bit day by day, 22, possibly 23 degrees. second half of the weekend — still cloud for the far north of scotland, but it�*s rolling down the north sea, maybe just hugging some of these north sea coasts in the north—east

of england, a little bit cooler here but, otherwise, temperatures very similar i think on sunday in the sunshine reaching 23, possibly even 2a in western areas of scotland. let�*s have a look at early next week and there it is. high pressure. really, this pattern isn�*t changing very much at all, so all the wet weather continues to be through the mediterranean, although, even here, it�*s becoming a little less wet next week. but we�*ve got more cloud coming our way through the north sea, so we�*re going back to the weather that we�*ve seen over the past couple of days, keeping some eastern coastal counties a little cooler and cloudier but, again, west is going to be best in terms of the sunshine and the highest temperatures. and as you can see, there�*s the same area of high pressure, there�*s cloud within it, and coming in off the norths sea there�*s some cloudy skies as well. that will be moving further inland overnight across a good part of england, perhaps into scotland as well. through the day, it will gradually retreat back to those eastern coastal areas where the breeze is coming in off the north sea.

so, again, cooler maybe cloudier for eastern areas, warmer with more sunshine out towards the west. this is a familiar story. is it going to change? well, this is our usual model, our preferred model, and preferred story. high pressure still there, stronger winds in the south and south—east at times, and maybe a little weather front on the tail end of that area of low pressure coming into the north—west. now, not all models are in total agreement. we know there�*s been a lot of rain in the south of europe, and one computer model actually pushes lower pressure and some rain towards the far south of the uk later next week. that looks less likely to happen. but you can see a bit of rain there in london on wednesday. totally overdoing it, there mightjust be a spot of drizzle because there�*s some more cloud around but, essentially, it�*s dry for many parts of the country, it�*s going to be feeling pleasantly warm in the sunshine and no significant rain on the horizon.

live from washington. this is bbc news. welcome to viewers on pbs in america. after passing in the house, the us debt ceiling deal clears a final vote in the senate. we have the latest updates. air raids have been declared across ukraine after fresh calls from president zelensky for his country to join nato and the eu. plus — we have a winner in this year�*s scripps national spelling bee. and chances are, you might have some trouble spelling what turned out to be the winner word. hello, i�*m sumi somaskanda. let�*s go to pictures from the senate,